An Introduction To Ajax Alex Russell Project Lead, The Dojo Toolkit [email protected] These Slides Are Online: http://alex.dojotoolkit.org Tarball Of Demo Code: http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/wp-content/demos.tar.gz Please Ask Questions Odds are someone else is wondering the same thing What We’ll Cover • What Ajax is • What Ajax is not • The fundamentals of Ajax • How to build better experiences with Ajax • Tools to make Ajax development easier How We’ll Get There • Demos • Deconstruction • Code examples • Introduction to debugging tools What You’ll Walk Away With • Enough code to be dangerous • Enough knowledge not to be • Tools of the trade • Places to look when you get stuck • How it all fits together • The lowdown on “what’s next” What Is Ajax? • New name, old tech • Technique for increasing UI responsiveness • Incremental, in-place updates to a page • Updates a result of user actions • Preserves you reach • No plugins, standards based • Browser as protocol participant Why Ajax Now? • The browsers stabalized • The DOM is more-or-less implemented • HTML and CSS are tapped out • At the limit of resonsiveness and usability • REST and SOAP are handy endpoints • What if the browser could be just another client? When Is Ajax The Answer? • When targeting majority browsers exclusively or can write two versions • When you interface “feels” heavy • When the competition is using Ajax • They will be soon! • When it can make users’ lives better but not worse When Is Ajax Bad? • When it breaks the freaking back button • When it hinders accessibility • When it disorients users • “jumping blocks” • When it fails silently • When it ignores indempotency